Sure, at first glance, it looks like another gaffe, but not Joe Biden's, this time. After all, getting the phone numbers right is what staff are for. At least it's not another story about the inevitability of a former first lady in 2016.

Vice President Joe Biden literally – literally, we tell you – congratulated the wrong guy for winning the Boston mayoral race on Tuesday night. Son of a gun! What will that old Acela-riding, shotgun-promoting, product of Scranton, Pa., do to get attention next?

Here’s the story in case you haven’t heard. Boston’s new mayor-elect is named Marty Walsh. Minutes after the election returns indicated Mr. Walsh’s victory, Mr. Biden reached out to pump the guy’s hand, verbally speaking.

But it was the wrong Marty. The veep had called Marty Walsh, a former aide to Sen. Ted Kennedy and the current president of a Boston government relations firm, as opposed to Marty Walsh, the labor activist and state lawmaker who’d just won thetop City Hall job.

Wrong Marty did not get upset. He’s used to such mix-ups, apparently. He passed along the phone number of the right Marty, which he had on hand, probably taped next to the phone along with pizza carry-out info.

Flip-flop alert! The guy’s mayor, he’s not mayor, it’s good either way? Take a stand, Biden.

Anyway, here’s our take on this. The mix-up was not Joe’s fault. Why? Because you don’t really think he dials his own phone calls, do you?

He is not sitting in the basement man cave of the VP residence at the Naval Observatory with a cellphone, a ginger ale, and the big screen. He’s in an office somewhere with a list of congratulatory phone calls to make and the White House switchboard all primed to dial the numbers and line them up so Biden can go down the list as fast as possible.